Favourite Quotes (6)

"The best way out is always through".
—Robert Frost's A Servant to Servants

Mood: happy

Song of the Day: Songs On 12 Play by Chris Brown feat. Trey Songz

What a fun song :)

Song of the Day: Heavy In Your Arms by Florence And The Machine

An utterly gorgeous song not diminished in the least by having *just* discovered that it was made for one of the Twilight films.

"This will be my last confession
I love you never felt like any blessing 
Whispering like it's a secret 
Only to condemn the one who hears it
With a heavy heart"

Song of the Day: Selah by Lauryn Hill

I've liked this song for years. It's a song I like to listen to when it's gloomy or melancholy. I have a memory of coming down with a cold one day early in my exchange term and just shutting off from the world for hours in my darkened room with the curtains drawn and this song on repeat while intermittently sipping tea.

The thing with music is that sometimes a song simply serves as an indulgence ... and then there are nights like tonight when I feel the lyrics very deeply. 

I’m Sorry Part Deux

Ok so while my thoughts on “I’m sorry” have definitely come to the fore in my time abroad, it also seems to be a nice segue into a discussion on blogging and guilt. Clearly, a pattern I have is that I don’t post often as I’d like, then I post something along the lines of ‘whoopsie! I’m back and I’ll try to be more regular’.

The truth is that while I get random passers-by, I actually know less than a handful of readers of this blog. Intentionally. From the go, I wanted this to be a repository for my thoughts, so to speak, and it has remained mainly for me, as I want to. And yet, it is almost incredible that I can feel guilt about something that has no deadline and no one to whom I am responsible. It is most definitely not high on my list of things I feel guilty about but that it’s there is, I feel, a reflection of my nature.

And so, I’ve decided to approach blogging differently. Until now, I felt such guilt for not blogging about my big move as I wanted to, but to hell with it. Instead of it being a journal on my time abroad, it shall now a reflection after the fact. I shall no longer think about to what extent and to what detail I write, but simply post without guilt.

To myself, I’m no longer sorry ;)

I'm Sorry

So here’s a story. Yesterday, a Scandinavian I was strolling with dropped his umbrella and I reflexively said “I’m sorry”. It’s only too true that Canadians have a special relationship with the phrase “I’m sorry”.

Sometimes, like anyone else we mean it and we are genuinely apologetic. But sometimes, like in the above scenario, it just comes out of our mouths before we know it.

Other times, it’s just something that’s said in certain situations. For example, should you accidentally come into contact with strangers (i.e., they bump you or the other way around), in either scenario you would say “I’m sorry”. This can certainly seem strange to non-Canadians - “why would I apologize when clearly he bumped into me?” The thing is, 99% of the time, it’s accidental and both of you saying you’re sorry is just a quick way of acknowledging the accidental contact and saying it’s ok. So, to translate, the person who did the bumping - the bumper, if you will, is actually apologizing when they say “I’m sorry”. And by also apologizing, what the bumpee is saying can be roughly translated to “oh, no worries, it’s ok!”

Truly, I did get frustrated when living in Norway (especially in the beginning) where people bump into you with nary a word. And I was pretty ticked that time after time I would reflexively apologize for them bumping into me and get nothing back. I know that it’s just cultural and not personal, but it was still annoying to deal with.

A German friend once pointed out that I said “I’m sorry” a lot. My immediate response was to say sorry. I swear, I was not being an ass. Once more, it was just a reflex and it came out of my mouth before I knew it. Again, I wasn’t truly sorry that I said sorry a lot. That is not something I’d like to change, even after living abroad. Especially after living abroad. It’s something I very much like about Canadian culture.

The thing is, most of the time when we say we’re sorry we don’t really mean it, it’s just a social politeness that’s quite nice. It greases the social wheels so to speak. You can never go wrong with saying sorry as much as we do because even when you don’t necessarily mean it deeply, it’s not a “bad” thing to say.

Better said than unsaid.

So, when the aforementioned Scandinavian noticed that particular Canadian-ism and remarked that it made him miss Canada, I was definitely pleased to hear it. After so many frustrating moments (this very morning I was pushed aside just so someone could enter a bus before me), it was nice that our “apologetic” nature was appreciated.

So, go forth my chickens and grease those wheels.

Favourite Quotes (6)

I don't think I would consider this one of my favourite quotes, but at the moment it rings true:

It's better to regret what you've done than what you haven't.